Two interactive illustrators who explore complex subjects through play.

Wednesday, 1 February 2012

Workshop at Barton Primary school in Cambridge.

Last week we went to Barton Primary school and did a workshop with some year 5s and 6s. We had spent a while designing the activity which was aimed to get the kids to create a human digestive system using props we had made. They had to digest 20 'food cubes' in two teams with the winning team having all their cubes turned to waste first. (the food cubes are green on one side and brown on the other...) Each student had a pair of teeth gloves to 'break down the three food groups within the cubes with some 'enzyme scissors'. Before we started we had a 'question time' and found out what sort of things the class already knew about the digestive system. They were really knowledgeable about the different food groups but didn't know that much about how the process of digestion actually worked (something for us to bear in mind in future.) The activity went really well with the kids going crazy trying to beat one another to separate the sausage, cheese and sweets into different categories. Afterwards we used some time to tell them a bit more about our plans for the giant digestive system playground and get some ideas from them. They were pretty enthusiastic with some imagining up intestine water shoots and electronic rectum fairground rides. We told them we would try our hardest to realise some of these ambitions but we weren't sure if we would manage to build a giant digestive system water slide because of the health and safety concerns...
Their teacher seemed happy with our fun interlude to the day and said we can go back any time and work with some of the younger classes too so this is exciting!